karla-paul wedding carriage reviled
Amy
it feels like yesterday. i remember the original coverage and headliens of
the case all too well.
May 28, 2005. 01:00 AM
Killers' wedding carriage reviled
DALE ANNE FREED
STAFF REPORTER
Once upon a time it was a fairy-tale wedding carriage.
Now the white vis-à-vis that spirited Karla Homolka and Paul Bernardo from
the notorious couple's nuptials is an albatross.
Some want it burned. Some want to buy it. Its owners don't want it
glorified.
The open white carriage with the royal blue interior and the front coach
lights is tied up in the wrangling over an estate, hidden in a barn in
Niagara-on-the-Lake. Bernardo and Homolka paid $1,000 to rent the carriage
for their wedding.
"The carriage will probably be destroyed," said owner Jeff Sentineal, 45,
who runs the day-to-day operations of a tourist trade carriage business in
Niagara-on-the-Lake. "It's always been a sore subject with our family." The
carriage is mired in controversy because it brings back memories of the
couple who killed Homolka's sister Tammy Lynn, 15, and two schoolgirls,
Leslie Mahaffy, 14, and Kristen French, 15.
"I've had people who have wanted to buy it for museums. You know what, it
ain't happening," said software company owner Jack Sentineal, 46, the older
brother and executor of his parents' will.
Jeff Sentineal said he is bound by a promise to Kristen French's mother,
Donna French, that he would destroy the carriage. "Mrs. French did not want
this carriage made larger than life. She wants the whole memory of the
carriage to die."
The grieving mother adamantly turned down Jeff Sentineal's offer to sell the
carriage and give her the money to help pay her legal bills.
But plans for the carriage are currently tied up in estate issues, said the
brothers, whose parents died recently within months of each other.
With Homolka's release from prison looming July 4, the brothers know the TV
footage of the couple in the wedding carriage will be broadcast again.
"I will burn it before it leaves the property," said Jack Sentineal, whose
family once lived three doors down from the Homolka family on Dundonald St.
in St. Catharines.
Even the Criminal Hall of Fame in nearby Niagara Falls would turn it down,
said owner Don Lombardi. "Too many hard feelings, it's just too close to
home, too many bad memories."
As she sat in the white carriage on the Saturday afternoon of her wedding on
June 29, 1991, Homolka was the very picture of an unhappy bride.
Her wedding theme song was "Patience" by Guns N' Roses but Karla wasn't
showing any patience on that day. While the couple posed for photos, Homolka
demanded the driver stand by the horse instead of remaining seated on the
buggy holding the reins for safety reasons, said Rob, the driver who asked
that his last name not be used.
"She was a pretty girl in a very big dress" but "all snarky and bossy ... a
miserable bitch, a nasty bitch," recalled Rob.
That day Homolka's sister Tammy Lynn was memorialized at her wedding. The
flowers in the church sanctuary of St. Mark's Anglican Church in
Niagara-on-the-Lake, the bride's bouquet of roses and stephanotis and
freesias and the bridesmaids' flowers were all dedicated to her slain
sister.
Leslie Mahaffy's severed body parts were found embedded in chunks of
concrete in Lake Gibson on the day Homolka and Bernardo wed.
"The carriage is tarnished now. It's just too painful a reminder for the
victims' families," said Jeff Sentineal, eager for the estate issue to be
resolved.
"Fragile Warrior" Volfie
> victims' families," said Jeff Sentineal, eager for the estate issue to be
> resolved.
I find this rather silly, all in all. Blaming, or at least focusing wrath
upon, an inanimate object because two murderes rode in it seems like an
illogical reaction to the horrors that Holmalka and Bernardo dished out to
the folks of Ontario. Are people this upset over cement bags, too?
tiny dancer
"Amy" <amy...@personainternet.com> wrote in message
news:119jvlh...@corp.supernews.com...
That's why I find it hard to swallow that poor Karla was a *battered woman*
without responsibility for these horrendous crimes. I never got the
impression Karla was simply someone too intimidated to *do* anything.
Remember Bernardo never killed anybody before hooking up with Karla.
td
Michael Snyder
""Fragile Warrior" Volfie" <vol...@ccrtc.com> wrote in message
news:d7d5e4$16fs$1...@news.iquest.net...
It's more than that they just rode in it. It's that they had the brazen
gall
to perform this "celibration", and combine it with a memorial for Karla's
teen sister Tammy whom they had raped and murdered, that the dismembered
body of one of their victims was discovered on the very day of the wedding.
Amy
pursuaded to her dark side with the right partner in crime.
"tiny dancer" <tinyd...@nowhere.com> wrote in message
news:uFome.15693$6k7....@bignews4.bellsouth.net...
quee...@gmail.com
it's never going to leave the premises then why don't they just burn it
already? Why give interviews about it? Methinks someone has an
attachment to the carriage and the attention it draws. I do agree that
it's silly to place blame on an inatimate object, just destroy it
already.
